To Be Or Not To Be. That Is The Foolishness.

I’m ecstatic! The temperature is above freezing! The weekend is almost here! And I got to read some great stuff this week too. Here’s some of what I saw…Samantha Hines wrote about a porch that was more than just a porch.T. Dawn gave a great fiction piece about being someone else, and this one’s a little old, but Quirky put up quite possibly the most hilariously disturbing food post I’ve been lucky to read. It has donuts. That’s all I’m going to say.A great week of reading, from them and everyone else, so thanks for that!

Oh, and TwinDaddy at Stuphblog is highlighting me on Feature Friday! Probably because he’s trying to lose followers. But I hope y’all pop over to check him out and follow. He’s a great voice in the cloud.

But one particular time when it doesn’t seem like anyone was reading was Valentine’s Day. In last week’s poll, we asked how, instead of doing the traditional things, you’d be celebrating. And I don’t think Hallmark makes cards for all your ideas. Here’s what you said. (As always, my comments are dressed skimpily in italics

Catching up on all the foolishness… It is Friday after all (Kanerva)(So…watching couples fight for parking at overcrowded restaurants?)Hybernating until spring. Kayjai(That’s barely a one month nap. Is it even worth it?)Celebrating Zombie Day instead 🙂 Don’t ask… Andro(And Jesus appreciates your devotion!)Searching the TV Guide in hopes of a new episode of Shark Tank. ~Maddie(In a stirring Valentine’s episode, the judges make a romantic dinner out of the dreams of hopeful contestants!)No time for Valentine’s Day–I’ll be trading in my iPhone5 for a new iPhone 5S(Buy now to get the Date-A-Hipster app free!)Party Hearty on Mardi Gras! (Stacy)(I thought King Baby came 9 months after Valentine’s Day?)We went to a SF/fantasy/gaming convention! jaklumen(Yeah, my wife needs extraordinary circumstances to dress up like Slave Princess Leia too.)Roadtripping!!! Kanerva(Better than icesliding!)Washing my hair (Elyse 54.5)(You were doing it in slo-mo, with that head flick, right?)Hunting around in the yard for Cupid’s arrow, since it missed me and my house.(Doesn’t having a diaper clad sniper in the neighborhood make the real estate values go down?)to donate my heart, which is like a trampoline- stomped on and resilient. Samara(It’s the Timex of organs!)Celebrating National Organ Donor Day, which also falls on Feb 14. Samara(I wonder how many overused livers they reject on the 15th…)Hoping none of my friends catch the VD… 1 Jaded 1(As long as they didn’t sit on a toilet seat…)Canceling my plans and vomiting all weekend, huzzaaahhhugh –Aussa Lorens(Funny, those usually are my plans…)Drinking heavily.(So…nothing special for Valentines Day.)Trying to remember what romance was like before children. And drinking. Deanna(For many of us, it’s the drinking while being romantic that leads to children.)I will be offering group Commando weekends, well if it’s warm enough 🙂 Andro(I really don’t want to hear about disassembling the rifles for cleaning.)Enjoying a Saturday night in alone, strike that idea I want some fun 🙂 Andro(How about organising an orgy?)organising an orgy for something else, hopefully 🙂 Andro(Sure, steal my idea…)shoveling snow…sigh SnB(Hey, it’s better than how the elephant tender at the zoo is spending his Valentine’s Day!)Trying to figure out why my old Christmas tree is stuck to my balcony.(That holiday spirit is year round!)Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day early. – Hotspur(I thought the early partying for that started March 18th?)Cooking a beautiful dinner for me and the lovely Mr S. Valentine’s rules okay r(Wait – the rules are she has to cook for him???)I think instead of celebrating I will be going to the doctor to clear up that annoying rash left over from the last romantic holiday I celebrated…… PMAO(No one celebrates groundhog day like you!)
(Thank goodness.)Spending time on C4C with lonely blogging buddies – Benzeknees(Look, if you’re going to say stuff like that, it’s very hard to mock you.)
(Which doesn’t mean I won’t try.)But I like Valentine’s Day…dammit, so much for my clever answer.(Don’t feel bad. I never have clever answers.)Shoving Cupid’s arrows up his keister, gently of course. polysyllabic profundities(Downtown, they usually charge extra for gentle.)Celebrating Valentoons Day watching a PePe Lepu Marathon-Linda Vernon(Umm…those are episodes of TLC’s Strange Love: Skunks…)Seeing a flemish bluegrass arthouse flick about cancer. For real (rollergiraffe)(Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.)Celebrating all the 50% off Chocolate sales after V-Day! –RoS(But acne cleanser goes up to 150%.)I’m french. I am valentines day ya fucker. (Marie Nicole)(And now I see how “pardon my french” became a thing.)silly. Same thing I do every day. thematticuskingdom(But if you marry Punky Brewster, what will the children look like?)trying to take over the world. Same thing I do every day. thematticuskingdom(Wait – are you the one that’s the genius, or the one that’s insane?)stalking people through their blogs. same thing I do every day. thematticuskingdom(Only then will you prove your mousey worth!)At Duane Reade, buying Easter decorations. BT(Better hurry before the xmas decorations crowd them off the shelves.)Trying to think of something that rhymes with ‘Politically Correct’.(All I can think of is “erect”. Because apparently, I’m twelve.)Shoveling snow. Walking the dog in the snow. Building a snow cupid. SNNOOOWWW!!!(WE HAVE A WINNER!!!)drinking, big time. Alex A.(Being single means never having to share teh Valentines booze!)Trying to convince Al Roker to shovel your place. (Frank)(He’s too busy shoveling crap on the NYC mayor.)Buying a box of Valentine’s Day cards and having a bonfire with them – Twindaddy(Ah, fanning the flames of love…)working on the other kind of VD – you know the STD kind… Rutabaga(One Standard Valentines Day, coming up.)Prepping for my colonoscopy.(Dinner and drinks with the proctologist first?)Packing for my holidays! YAY!!(I hope your suitcase is big enough to fit the whole class.)

Congratulations to the anonymous patron for this weeks winning answer! And from the offered choices, the most popular was a tie between Coming down from the post-Olympics high. (Curling is intense!) and Sending Ben & Jerry’s stock through the roof. (Loneliness never tasted so good.). So congratulations to all you Olympic level ice cream eaters out there!

Much more appropriate than that Thinker guy…

This week finds the Greater Republic of Guapola in a ponderous mood. Philosophical even! But instead of Socrates famous “Like the sands through the hourglass…” (mostly because sand makes me think of chafing in awkward areas) we focus instead on Descartes “I think, therefore I am”. So this weeks question is What do you think?Answer often, and take your time to ponder, because this one closes in ten days, on Monday 3 March, at 2359 EST. (My brain will need the extra week to recover from all this thinking, so no foolishness next friday. It’s also possible I’ll just be hibernating.)
Try and limit your write ins to four answers, and if you like, leave a name on your write-ins, and I’ll link back to you next week.

And as we had into the weekend, enjoy these!
First, here’s a clever falling domino set up. Turn your speakers down a bit, because the music is electronica.
Unless you like electronica, in which case I forgive you.
And finally, a brilliant ode to the Spiderman Musical. With flying!
(I think the audience member is Exile on Pain Street.)
And until we meet again, have a great weekend, and a thorough foolishness!

172 responses to “To Be Or Not To Be. That Is The Foolishness.”

Soooo glad I stumbled across you via Christy. OF COURSE, she’s the one buying chocolate after VDay…I just found my own 50% off box last night!!
Thanks for starting my Friday with a big hearty laugh that woke the boys and the dogs in this house. I’ll ponder your next question thoughtully before responding….thinking doesn’t come naturally to this pea-brain. I’m a doer, not a thinker!

I’m gratified to hear you say that!
I make my wife read these several times before I post.
On each pass through, I watch her face, and when she smiles or laughs, I just in with “which one? which one?”.
As I add answers for the ones that took more time, I read them to her, then ask “but was it funny? was it?”

I love that you have your wife read these before posting! I did that (in the beginning) with hubby. I was completely amazed to see him rolling over laughing on a few and it gave me confidence to hit “publish.” Since I’ve been a bit more serious lately, he’s lost interest. Hmmm…that’s a sign, no? Your wife is who Stephen King referenced as your “Constant Reader” (I think that’s his term). Whenever you write, you think about she will respond and what she will say. SK used his wife Tabitha in the same manner. It’s so wonderful that you do that, too. Happy Friday new friend!

Wow, what an awesome dominoes display! I just can’t help by wonder, though, who’s gonna clean up all that stuff!?!
Hope you have a GREAT weekend Guapo! Here in San Antonio it should be gorgeous, with sunny skies and highs in the 70s!

I don’t know if you’re a fan or chose it just because of the GREAT video but assuming t’is the former, you should definitely check out what he does to Daft Punk’s Robot Rock on the turntables on YouTube.

I’ll tell you whose fault it was. Not Julie Taymor, like the media said. It was BONO and THE EDGE. Those songs were so goddamn boring I wanted to scream. Each one was a funeral dirge. If you’re seeing a musical and you can’t wait for the songs to end, there’s a problem. Actually, since you’re asking (ha) it was pretty spectacular visually.

I don’t think I’d enjoy delving deep enough into electronica and electronic dance music to find out what the differences are.
I need to preserve the tattered remnants of my sanity…

I’m not sure what the character limit is – 200 or so. You can always tell me in the comments which write in was yours, or just break it into multiple parts in the poll. Multiple votes are allowed. I think you just need to refresh or close and reopen the page.

I’ve been doing the friday posts long enough to have a routine. Everyone new that leaves a write in gets a preformatted line in a text file, so I just copy and paste (my wife’s idea. I used to do them over and over from scratch each week.)
I also just save the links that grab me through the week.

The hardest parts are picking just a couple of links, and coming up with replies to the write-ins. (And figuring out exactly what my comments are doing in italics.) 😉

some weeks come harder than others. this one was a bit more difficult, that’s why I’m taking next week off.

In actual fact, the kids of this country (Sweden), including my daughter, have been enjoying the annual Sports holiday which means a week off school. But for us less kiddy, no such luck…Easter seems to be the next big one!

Firstly, I could have been completely satisfied with just the title of this post. Love. Secondly, when I read, “In last week’s poll, we asked ho….” and immediately thought, “Who, ME?” knowing I hadn’t been interviewed for the poll. Or even answered it! Wow! And it just got better from there… Happy Above-Freezing Friday Guap!

Great blog. I also love the statue of LePiss. I visited the little fella while traveling in Brussels about 20 years ago. I just began blogging and I cannot believe how much talent there is on WP. I’ve been following Samara a lot. Boy does she have some crazy experiences. Thank you for your writing you are very inspirational.

Oh no, no more snow!!! We had snow last week, then an earthquake (in SC, but felt here in GA) and tornado warnings all this week, followed by high 60s this weekend! Yay! I will be out on the bike enjoying the respite, but keeping my eye on Mother Nature, just in case she continues her menopausal ways. That is the only possible explanation for the craziness, no?

I think it’s inherently harder for electronic musicians to really demonstrate how they create their music, which would probably explain so many electronic/synth bands of the ’80s appearing with guitar and drum setups. Then there were ones that used keytars…

About the only notable thing I remember seeing was Depeche Mode using those really large drum pad things in the Depeche Mode 101 film.

Part of it for me is that I don’t find that sound appealing. The other is that there’s a huge difference in my eyes between hearing the results of a difficult and intense programming session, where the live performance is flipping switches or slides on an effects box, and the actual precision and skill of playing a traditional musical instrument.

That’s a large part of why I don’t like electronica. And again, just not a fan of the sound.

But what is your opinion on, say, a theremin performance? I mean, as far as precision and skill, not whether you like the sound of it or not.

I’m just curious as to your thoughts. I admit that I’m VERY much a technician at heart, and I’m including theater experience in that as well. I’ve been on stage for music and theater performance (supposedly, I have talent for acting and music performance), but working behind the scenes, or creating stuff in a studio… it’s just more satisfying to me.

I don’t know that I think of a theremin as music, though there is definitely skill there to play(?) it live.
So you prefer electronically crafting music in an app as opposed to a traditionally defined musical instrument?

I don’t prefer one over the other. I think each has its place. I think they give artists/composers a broader spectrum of sound palettes.

Think about it this way: which is superior, the classical guitar, the flamenco guitar, the steel-stringed acoustic guitar, or a solid-body electric? (You know I haven’t begun to list all the possible variations.) I don’t think you would choose one over another, but you’re probably familiar that classical guitar performance eschews electric amplification entirely and the guitars only use nylon and nylon-core strings.

“In an app…” *sigh* I had a long response concerning hardware and analog-based synthesizers vs. software and digital-based synthesizers, and I just choose to save it for another time. Electronic music just can’t be distilled right down to an app all the time, although I have met a number of artists that save a lot of production costs by creating most of their music by way of a laptop. That doesn’t mean they all cut out any inclusion of traditional instruments, however.

I could easily go for pages upon pages upon pages, Guap. One of my undergrad music professors on two different occasions said that I should consider studying musicology, and that I had perfect hands for playing the cello. That is to say, I definitely haven’t slouched in any of my music studies. I also detested a huge swath of my music education because I think traditional music education is incredibly tonedeaf to modern, living, breathing music. Even the jazz schools have their own purist, elitist hangups.

I agree with everything you say.
I’d also justify everything I said above by pointing out that mine is strictly an esthetic point of view.
I sincerely applaud everyone who can express themselves doing what they love and making a living in the electronic sphere – DJs, dance music producers, what have you, but I won’t be at their concerts or buying their albums, because aside from a few songs, that whole scene just leaves me flat and doesn’t excite me in any way.

That being said, any interest in doing a guest post (semi-comical if possible) mocking my limited view and explaining why I’m wrong?

Hahaha, Guap, I’m not really a confrontational guy. It just wouldn’t be me to insist that you force yourself to enjoy something that you don’t. I certainly get your arguments– these musicians definitely have to do other things to engage the crowd. And even then, I would absolutely agree with you that it’s a VERY different experience. I’m still trying to wrap the fact around my brain that Daft Punk (who are really just two DJs at best) do concerts… Coachella, even.

Seeing Depeche Mode in 1998 with Cimmorene was a lot of fun, but, y’know, I can readily admit it’s a very different experience compared to seeing something along the lines of KISS, or Gwar, or… help me out, I’m sure you can think of numerous acts that have a lot more stage presence.

I’d be interested in doing a guest post, but… again, it wouldn’t be to mock you. That’s just not my style. If it was something like Spinal Tap meets E-Moe and the Depressed Mood, something farcical and pierced tongue-in-cheek, though, well…

I saw Kraftwerk at Coachella, along with a bunch of DJs.
I think Kraftwerk set up poseable mannequins behind their laptops, and just repositioned them in the dark between songs. The band(?) ran the show from off-stage.

I saw Depeche Mode (my wife’s a fan) a while back and thought they had good stage presence. I’m just not a fan.

You’re more than welcome to write that post, and if you don’t want to put it on your site, I’m happy to have it here.
If you could work in some of the musical background/knowledge you’ve shown in our comments, that would be even better!

You sure know how to bring ’em in and keep ’em here, El Guapo! I listened to a Paul McCartney tune I’ve never heard before, read loads of good stuff, saw a Manneken Pis, slow toast in a domino line, Muppets, and I listened to Martha and the Vandellas (what’s a vandella?). Phew! I got here at midnight, and it’s 3:32 a.m. Great party!

I hope you’re not feeling too poorly tonight. A break in the cold weather always brings colds and flu. I was sorry to read you caught something.

I’m stuck in a bad cycle – stay up too late, sleep in too long. Some of it can’t be helped – like the all nighter we pulled on Thursday because the melting snow, ice, and torrential downpour flooded our basement. Fun times. 😉

This would have been a great inspiration for Valentine’s day if only I read it before… There should be a ‘hugging my cats, all 30 of them’ in there.
I packed my stuff that day, returned home and had a dance class, all while forgetting it was supposed to be a special day or something that is regarded as a special day by people who are took fucked up by hormones. Because let’s be honest, love is all about hormones and chemical reactions – nothing to be excited about…

Actually I think a diaper clad sniper in the neighborhood would add value! And now that I know how to make pulleys work, it just might be doable. I just hope I can find some Huggies to fit 37! (If you need me I’ll be at the bow and arrow shop.)

Ah Guaps, so busy watching the Olympics I haven’t even been reading posts, but I have to stop by Friday Foolishness! Doesn’t help I’m slightly under the weather, but it’s a good excuse to watch even more Olympics!

Your replies add such colour my great friend 🙂
This has been a giggle reading all the way down,
and the quality of comments are second to none,
not including my own observations but you know
what I mean 🙂